A seven-part documentary on China's food culture, "A Bite of China"
(which translated literally means "China on the Tip of the Tongue")
premiered on the main channel of China Central Television (CCTV-1) on
May 14, 2012 and became an instant sensation. The series gives a
panoramic introduction to China's rich culinary traditions and wide
regional varieties by showcasing unique ingredients, famous dishes, and
special food processing techniques, as well as local custom and
sceneries.

To get a taste of the series, watch the first episode on YouTube above.

The combination of food porn and nostalgia was potent. Within 48
hours after the premiere of its first episode, the series became the
most discussed topic in China. Many twentysomething Chinese (the
"post-90s generation," so named because they were born after 1990) who
would normally rather die than be caught watching CCTV readily admitted
on Sina Weibo that for a week they were glued to the TV, drooling over
the episodes.

宋有菜_0551: Watching this documentary is
definitely not an enjoyable process. It is visually beautiful, with
great narration and impeccable content arrangement. But the crux of the
problem is that there is nothing you can do but to drool while all of
these mouth-watering images are only showing on screen. And you would
agree that watching this documentary is a mistake.

路上的鸟: All kinds of memories and feelings of
homesickness emerged after watching it. Though the foods are extremely
tempting, what nearly broke me was this line from the narration: "It
doesn't really matter what you eat, nothing compares with staying with
one's family." How I miss my home! I miss all the lively chaos, my
parents and my little brother, and the warm feeling that fills up our
kitchen. This documentary is a torturing device for people who are away
from home, without mercy!

Aside from being saliva-enticing and tear-jerking, netizens also
noticed the documentary's extraordinary ability to stir up national
pride through exoticizing Chinese food culture.

袋鼠爱树袋熊：In terms of promoting patriotism, "A Bit of China" is much more effective than the Red Songs campaign.

商业评论网： Compared with China's national image
promotion video shown in Times Square, New York, "A Bite of China" is
much more successful. It uses taste buds to summon people's cultural
identity, smartly and sufficiently demonstrates the soft power of China.

But the idealized version of China as a "food paradise" quickly
turned into a call for a reality check. After watching the series, many
Weibo users reflected on the cost of urbanization and the environmental
toll of China's economic miracle.

围城边上的一棵树: As we sigh about the lack of
creativity in today's China, "A Bite of China" makes me deeply admire
how creative our ancestors were. We have so much fantastic cuisine and
yet KFC and McDonalds are so popular in China. We are in need of
marketing talents. With so many of the young generation rushing to the
roaring cities, a lot of food delicacies would turn into memories. With
the worsening environmental condition, many ingredients would go
extinct. We've already squandered too much . . .

Moreover, the overly sentimental tone of the narration also
backfired, causing netizens to speculate that the series is intended to
diverge media attention from China's lingering food safety crisis.

花夭花夭: I think this documentary is just
so-so, with the typical CCTV tone and style. After watching it, I don't
know what to think. There was no sense of time and the now. It seems to
be a random collection of fragments of tradition, put together with a
schmaltzy and contrived narration--the director's motivation might be
sincere, but unavoidably we have to suspect that it is a product of the
"CCTV conspiracy" -- are they aiming to shift the public's attention away
from food safety issues?

Popular Weibo user 假装在纽约 mockingly adopted the
narrator's tone and commented on the chain of recent food safety
scandals in China: "The second episode of 'A Bite of China': here comes
the winter. In the southeast of our country, people in Nanjing are using
copper sulfate to keep chives fresh. In the meantime, on the North
China Plain, people in Fucheng, Hebei province, are busy turning old
leather shoes into gelatin capsules. In the nearby city Shijiazhuang,
people are using Sudan I Red Dye to make red-yolk duck eggs. People in
Shandong like to add formaldehyde to their cabbage; whereas people in
Liaoning prefer to add sodium nitrite to their bean sprouts. Nationwide,
the delicious recycled cooking oil is popular across our vast land."

Even more biting and sarcastic comments were to be found among
China's Twitter community, who must evade the Great Firewall to access
the banned site.

@wangpei: After finishing the last
episode of "A Bite of China", I noticed that aside from footage shot in
Tibet, the water seemed to be muddy and the sky appeared to be gray
everywhere throughout the whole series. This not only confirms the
credibility of the PM2.5 data collected by the U.S. Embassy, but also
proves the words of an expert from a recent water crisis report on
Caixin media, "Rivers in Northern China are all dry, rivers in Southern
China are all polluted." Welcome to China, on the tip of a knife blade.

@hnjhj: As Chinese society is getting wealthy and
people no longer need to worry about feeding themselves, many started to
breed some wild thoughts. Some have even lost their mind and begun to
care about the so-called "issues of freedom and democracy." The relevant
department threw out "A Bite of China" right on time, so people can get
back on track, shift their focus of life back to eating, and thus
return to being truly Chinese.

Qiaoyi Zhuang contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared at Asia Society, an Atlantic partner site.